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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26675200">Easily Ruined</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuubism/pseuds/cuubism'>cuubism</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>limitations [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shadowhunters (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, M/M, Magic Loss, Magnus Bane-centric, Makeup, Mild Sexual Content, Tenderness, Vulnerability, the makeup is a metaphor, the mortifying ordeal of being seen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 13:20:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,072</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26675200</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuubism/pseuds/cuubism</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Magnus uses makeup to show himself off, but also to hide. And hide he does, until he can't anymore. Until he no longer wants to.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>limitations [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612705</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>225</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Hunter's Moon Fic Recs</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Easily Ruined</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>wrote this in one day and i feel completely fucking feral. hope you enjoy</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“How is your makeup <em>still </em>perfect?”</p>
<p>Magnus looks across the bed to find Alec lying on his side, gazing at him. His hair is a disaster, and Magnus knows his own is no better—it has a tendency to fall into his eyes when mussed up by wandering fingers. But he’s been reliably assured that this is extremely sexy, so he lets it be.</p>
<p>His makeup, on the other hand, has already been snapped back to perfection, courtesy of decades’-worth of instincts in that regard. It must have been destroyed as of mere seconds ago—Alec has a dark smudge of something or other on his cheek that proves it—but Magnus never lets it stay that way. Why would he, when it’s so easy to fix?</p>
<p>“Perks of being a warlock, darling,” he drawls, licking his thumb and reaching out to rub the smudge off Alec’s face.</p>
<p>“I kind of like it messed up,” Alec admits, catching Magnus’s hand and kissing it.</p>
<p>“You like <em>messing </em>it up,” Magnus corrects.</p>
<p>Alec grins bashfully. “Yeah.” He tugs Magnus toward him. “Can I mess it up again?”</p>
<p>Magnus sighs dramatically even as his heart gives a wobbly little flip. “If you insist on defiling me, I suppose that can be arranged.”</p>
<p>Alec pulls Magnus on top of him and kisses him hungrily, hands bracketing his face. Magnus groans into the kiss.</p>
<p>Alec pulls away to look at him, swipes a thumb under Magnus’s eye, watching as his eyeliner smears at his touch. Magnus frowns. He must have forgotten to set it. That’s not like him.</p>
<p>Alec’s gaze flickers up to meet Magnus’s, and the heat in his eyes almost undoes Magnus. It’s overwhelming, to be so wanted.</p>
<p>“Beautiful,” Alec says.</p>
<p>Magnus kisses him, slow and deep and trying to tell him how much he loves him. He’s always fallen fast, but he doesn’t think he has ever been <em>so </em>unraveled by someone’s every movement, every word, every heartbeat.</p>
<p>Alec runs his fingers through his hair again, undoing every remaining bit of gel until Magnus’s hair is a mess of soft waves, his skin oversensitive but still craving more. He moans into the touch.</p>
<p>Pathetic. He sounds so pathetic, but he can’t bring himself to care. He just wants Alec to touch him. Mess him up. He doesn’t care.</p>
<p>He can always put himself back together later.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>When Alec calls out to him, he’s so lost in thought he almost forgets he hasn’t magicked his makeup on yet.</p>
<p>He puts it on and turns around in one smooth movement. “What’s that, darling?”</p>
<p>“I asked if you were okay,” Alec says. He looks very soft, and it makes Magnus smile. He’s wearing one of <em>Magnus’s </em>robes, actually, loose around his shoulders and hanging open over his pajama pants. Magnus has always liked the sight of Alec against silk. “I called your name like five times, you were… somewhere else.”</p>
<p>“Just thinking,” Magnus says. He doesn’t really want to elaborate on what he was thinking about. None of them were good memories.</p>
<p>“Oh, yeah?” Alec says, coming closer and resting a broad palm on Magnus’s hip. His other comes up to brush Magnus’s hair—which he’d forgotten to style, dammit—out of his eyes. “That’s new.”</p>
<p>From anyone else, the words might sting a little, but Alec has made his admiration for Magnus’s ‘genius,’ as he calls it, abundantly clear. Magnus pokes him in the chest anyway. “No <em>manners </em>with this one.”</p>
<p>Alec tilts his head. “Manners are overrated.”</p>
<p>Magnus finds himself rather in agreement with this statement, especially when it means Alec’s about to kiss him.</p>
<p>Alec leans in, but pauses before he meets Magnus’s mouth. “You sure you’re okay? Sure it was just… normal thinking?”</p>
<p>“None of my thinking is normal,” says Magnus, and Alec rolls his eyes. “I was just <em>thinking</em>,” Magnus confirms, “but I’d rather like to not be thinking anymore, if you know what I mean.”</p>
<p>“So, back to the usual,” Alec says, a twinkle in his eyes, and Magnus has to admit that he walked right into that one.</p>
<p>“Shut your rude mouth and kiss me.”</p>
<p>Alec does, pulling Magnus closer by the hips until their bodies are flush. The silk of Magnus’s own robe pressing against his body in this way is a strange sensation. He wonders if Alec feels the same way about his t-shirt, which Magnus is wearing.</p>
<p>“If my mouth’s too rude for you I can take it away,” Alec says, an absolutely hollow threat considering he immediately starts mouthing under Magnus’s jaw.</p>
<p>Magnus means to make a snarky comment in response, but Alec nips at his skin and all he can manage is a gasp. He can <em>feel </em>Alec’s smirk in response.</p>
<p>“Not thinking anymore, are you?”</p>
<p>“Thinking about a lot of things, actually,” Magnus pants, getting his hands up into Alec’s hair. “A <em>lot </em>of things.”</p>
<p>“I see. You want to elaborate?”</p>
<p>“Thinking about—” Magnus starts, in between kisses “—your mouth. Thinking about you wearing my clothes. You pulling me to bed, all demanding—”</p>
<p>“Oh, is that how I am?”</p>
<p>“If you’re doing it right.” As if he could ever <em>not </em>be doing it right. He doesn’t have to <em>do </em>anything. Magnus dissolves into pure desire when Alec just <em>looks </em>at him.</p>
<p>Alec laughs. “Okay, then.”</p>
<p>And he grabs a fistful of Magnus’s shirt and <em>yanks </em>him in the direction of the bedroom.</p>
<p>Magnus stumbles, catching himself on Alec’s chest, his stomach swooping pleasantly. “You took that very literally,” he tells Alec, looking up at him.</p>
<p>“Sorry.”</p>
<p>“Oh, don’t apologize.” He runs his hands over Alec’s skin, pushing the robe off his shoulders, admiring him in the morning light.</p>
<p>“You want demanding?” Alec asks, and before Magnus can do much more than start to nod, he’s leaning down to sweep Magnus off his feet. Magnus yelps and clings to his neck as he’s lifted and carried to the bedroom.</p>
<p>He sort of likes it, being held in Alec’s arms. He likes how easily Alec can hold him.</p>
<p>“People do this on their wedding nights, you know,” he says as they cross the threshold, and by God he doesn’t know <em>why </em>he says that.</p>
<p>Alec pauses, and Magnus wonders if he’s said too much, revealed too much of his buried thoughts.</p>
<p>“Alec?”</p>
<p>“Sorry, I’m just memorizing that information,” Alec says, and puts Magnus down on the bed.</p>
<p>Magnus gets comfortable on the sheets, heart pounding as Alec crawls up the bed and settles between his legs, leaning gently down to kiss him again.</p>
<p>“Memorizing?” Magnus asks.</p>
<p>Alec <em>winks </em>at him.</p>
<p>Magnus swallows and pushes at his shoulders until he can flip them, straddle his hips, lean in to kiss the tip of his nose, his cheeks. He’d asked for demanding, and that’s not what this is, but he finds he doesn’t much care.</p>
<p>He just likes the warmth of Alec under him, the softness of his skin in contrast with the hard lines of the muscle beneath it. He likes the gentle strength of his boyfriend’s hands as they come up to cradle his jaw. Alec could break him, he thinks. Magnus isn’t sure he wouldn’t let him. The thought sends a tremble through him.</p>
<p>Alec’s thumb plays with his lips, sliding between them. “You would be really beautiful without makeup,” he says.</p>
<p>Magnus blinks. “You don’t… like the makeup?”</p>
<p>“Of course I do,” Alec reassures him, “and I like that you like it. I just think you would look pretty without it, too.”</p>
<p>Something trembles uncertainly in Magnus’s chest. “Shameless flatterer,” he says. His voice cracks.</p>
<p>“Maybe,” Alec says. There’s something very <em>knowing </em>about him in this moment. He holds Magnus’s face between his hands. “But you make me that way.”</p>
<p>It must be true, for Magnus doesn’t think Alec’s <em>flattered </em>anyone in his life. He doesn’t do <em>flattery</em>. Not until now.</p>
<p>Hearing it now feels… dangerous. Thinking that he can unravel Alec the way Alec unravels him makes Magnus feel dangerous.</p>
<p>“You only <em>think </em>you want to see me without makeup,” Magnus says, and Alec frowns.</p>
<p>“Magnus—”</p>
<p>Magnus kisses him, and Alec lets him, lets him turn the conversation away from where it was headed—at least for now.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>If Magnus’s goddamn hands don’t stop shaking, he’s going to take a kitchen knife and cut them off. That would create innumerable other problems, but at least it would solve this one.</p>
<p>He stares at the eyeliner pencil in his hand like it’s personally attacked him. That’s what it feels like, anyway.</p>
<p>It’s not that he doesn’t know how to do his eyeliner by hand, even if he’s barely had to do it that way ten times in the past several decades. It’s that his fucking hands won’t stop <em>shaking.</em></p>
<p>He can’t do this. He can’t do this. He can’t just <em>put on his eyeliner </em>and <em>go about his day </em>like everything’s <em>fucking </em>normal, because it’s not, and it never will be again, and why can’t he fucking do this?</p>
<p>He hurls the pencil across the room, watching it collide with the wall and leave a black streak on the paint as it clatters to the floor. It mocks him, that streak.</p>
<p>Before Magnus knows what he’s doing he’s picking up a bottle of nail polish and throwing that across the room, too. It’s either that, or scream. It doesn’t shatter, but he wishes it would.</p>
<p>He’s just picked up another one when Alec runs into the room, blade in hand. Curse his shadowhunter hearing.</p>
<p>“What’s going on?” he asks.</p>
<p>Magnus doesn’t want Alec to see him like this. One eye half-done with eyeliner. Unhinged. Shaking with fury because it feels better than shaking with fear. By God he wishes he could just snap his makeup to rights. “Nothing,” he says, “I’m just having an episode.”</p>
<p>Alec looks from the nail polish bottle clenched in his hand to the black streak on the wall. He walks across the room to retrieve the eyeliner pencil from the floor, and starts <em>sharpening the tip with the edge of his seraph blade. </em>Magnus watches, alarmed.</p>
<p>“Let me do it,” Alec says, putting his blade aside once he’s whittled the eyeliner to an acceptable point, and, well, Magnus has no idea if Alec knows how to do this or not, but he certainly can’t do a worse job than Magnus is doing right now. Magnus sinks into his chair, defeated, and waves a hand. <em>Go ahead.</em></p>
<p>Alec crouches between his knees, leaning in to start tracing the waterline of his left eye, hand steady. “I know you didn’t want this,” he says quietly.</p>
<p>Magnus refrains from snarling, <em>obviously.</em></p>
<p>“I know you didn’t want,” Alec continues, “for me to see you without your makeup.”</p>
<p>Magnus’s brain short-circuits. For a moment, the panic swirling ever-present under his ribs subsides and is replaced by the new horror of <em>being seen</em>.</p>
<p>He almost lashes out, almost says, <em>well, you finally got what you wanted, didn’t you?</em></p>
<p>But that isn’t fair.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Alec says. He sounds sort of hurt by it, Magnus’s unwillingness to let him see, well, <em>anything</em>, but he doesn’t voice that hurt any more than the sliver of it that slips into his tone.</p>
<p>He finishes Magnus’s left eye and moves on to his right, and Magnus tries to swallow his existential terror for a moment and just breathe in the tenderness of the moment: Alec’s free hand braced lightly on his jaw, his breath ghosting warm over Magnus’s lips. His attention is so intense, being in its path is like being lit from within. Like floating.</p>
<p>“You’re everything to me,” Magnus says, “do you know that?”</p>
<p>Alec’s hand slips. Eyeliner smears across Magnus’s temple. Alec looks at him, eyes wide. Magnus doesn’t want him to be startled by this. He wants it to be—<em>needs </em>it to be—a fundamental truth of their universe.</p>
<p>Alec gathers his sleeve over his fingers, gaze still locked on Magnus’s. He reaches up to rub away the smear. “Sorry,” he says, “let me fix this.”</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Magnus can’t remember the last time he went so long without wearing makeup. It makes him feel sort of itchy, unprotected.</p>
<p>The first thing Magnus had said after their argument, after he’d yelled at Alec, <em>can you honestly say that you like this? </em>was, “I want to go to a hotel.”</p>
<p>He couldn’t very well go <em>home</em>, after all. He’d lost <em>home </em>in an ill-considered moment of desperation that had ultimately left him worse off than he’d started, left him reeling physically as well as emotionally, leaning on Alec for balance, sparks of pain running up his spine.</p>
<p>And the Institute made his skin crawl, he felt unwelcome there, trapped. He’d been tortured there. He’d collapsed there. He’d almost died there, <em>twice</em>.</p>
<p>No, Magnus needed to <em>get out</em>.</p>
<p>The cab ride to the hotel is excruciating. Alec holds his hand the whole way, fingers interlaced with Magnus’s, squeezing. Grounding him. Grounding himself, too, maybe. His gaze keeps flickering over, to Magnus’s nose, his lips, his eyes, his hands. Checking for blood, focus, steadiness. It’s clear in his whole bearing: <em>does your head hurt? You’ll tell me if it hurts, right?</em></p>
<p>Magnus feels like the worst person who's ever lived. For almost dying on him. For not dying on him. For being so difficult. For being distant. For being <em>ordinary</em>.</p>
<p>The one thing he has never been in his life is <em>ordinary.</em></p>
<p>He wants to go home.</p>
<p>Alec has to help him through the lobby, to the elevator. Magnus has to lean on his arm. He’s still unsteady. Alec holds him up even though Magnus yelled at him, even though he lied to him about being sick. He holds him up. Magnus doesn’t want him to let go.</p>
<p>The suite he’s booked is enormous, at the top of the building where he can look out over Central Park, see the whole city. He feels absolutely nothing, looking out at it, but the room is nice, he supposes. He might have lost his home and most of his worldly possessions, but at least he still has his bank accounts and can afford this absolutely gigantic room where he can be completely alone with his thoughts.</p>
<p>Because Alec is leaving. This isn’t <em>them moving in together</em>, that plan they’d been so hopeful about moments before catastrophe. Magnus doesn’t know if that’s even on the table at all anymore. This is <em>Alec dropping Magnus off</em>, because he still has work to go back to, still has a life.</p>
<p>Alec places Magnus’s bag at the foot of the bed. “Do you… want me to call something up for you?” he asks, hesitant. “Takeout, room service?”</p>
<p>“I’m more than capable of using a phone,” Magnus snaps.</p>
<p>Alec flinches.</p>
<p>“Okay, um, I’ll come by after work?” he asks, and Magnus hates that that’s become a question.</p>
<p>He sighs and nods. “Please.”</p>
<p>As soon as the <em>please </em>leaves his mouth Alec’s walking over to pull him into his arms, hold him tight for a moment. He presses a kiss into Magnus’s hair.</p>
<p>“It’s going to be okay,” he says.</p>
<p>A tight heat builds in Magnus’s throat, it’s hard to swallow around it. He hugs Alec back for a moment, then Alec’s stepping away, back to his responsibilities, while Magnus remains, in the pristine landscape of his own destruction.</p>
<p>The door clicks shut quietly behind Alec, and Magnus stares after him. He feels like he’s being left behind, and he feels like he’s doing it to himself.</p>
<p>It’s time to finally do his makeup.</p>
<p>He grabs his whole overnight bag and heads for the bathroom, which is, predictably, palatial—two sinks, huge shower, all white marble and gold finishes. Magnus thinks back to the controlled chaos of his own bathroom with its dozens of various hair and makeup products all over the place, fluffy towels stacked high, Alec’s toothbrush and razor crammed in beside his own. It had been a source of annoyance at first, that even <em>he</em>, Magnus Bane, couldn’t find an apartment in New York with an acceptable amount of bathroom space, but soon he had come to cherish those small moments: standing close together to shower, his hip bumping against Alec’s as they stood at the sink, Alec making an impromptu dance out of it, twirling Magnus around in the tiny space, just because he knew it made Magnus happy.</p>
<p>Magnus stares into the pristine mirror of his hotel suite, feeling hollow. There are bags under his eyes, and his hair is limp against his forehead. He looks as bad as he feels.</p>
<p>At least he can fix one of those things.</p>
<p>He opens the bag and starts digging through it, throwing clothes aside to find what he’s looking for. He digs, and keeps digging. Where in blazes is his makeup?</p>
<p>When he gets to the bottom of the bag, the bathroom now a mess of clothes strewn across the floor, he’s forced to accept it: his makeup’s not in the bag. He’d packed so quickly, fighting against his own unsteadiness, his own desperate need to flee, that he’d forgotten it.</p>
<p>Somehow, this is the final straw.</p>
<p>He sits on the floor, leans back against the counter as tears rush unbidden to his eyes, heat floods his cheeks, his chest constricting with frustration and pain. It hurts, crying like this, like the tears are getting stuck on their way out, not wanting to allow him his release. But it comes eventually, faster and faster until his cheeks are coated in water, fist pressed to his mouth to stifle the sound of his sobs.</p>
<p>Distantly, he hears the door click open, and then footsteps, and then—</p>
<p>“Magnus? Oh, no, shh, it’s okay—”</p>
<p>—and then Alec is sliding to his knees beside him and pulling Magnus into his arms. Magnus shuts his eyes tight, because even if he doesn’t have the strength to get up, move away before Alec can see him like this, he can at least avoid witnessing it himself.</p>
<p>“—It’s okay,” Alec’s still saying, “shh, it’s okay—”</p>
<p>Magnus sobs into his throat, hands clenching tight in his shirt. He sobs and sobs. He can’t breathe. He feels like he’s choking. It’s definitely <em>not </em>okay.</p>
<p>“I got you,” Alec says. He pulls Magnus into his lap, and the warmth of his thighs is welcome after the cold of the tile floor, the solidness of his chest prevents Magnus from drifting. Magnus feels wild with need, insanely greedy. He clutches Alec to him, twisting fingers in his shirt, digging them into his hair. “I got you.”</p>
<p>“You came back,” Magnus gasps. It feels impossible.</p>
<p>“I couldn’t leave you alone, not now.”</p>
<p>“But— your work—”</p>
<p>“Shh,” Alec says with finality, “it doesn’t matter. You matter.”</p>
<p> That isn’t <em>true</em>, but Magnus needs it to breathe, so he takes it anyway. He hides his face in Alec’s neck, needing more of him and less of everything else, the sights, sounds, colors of this empty place.</p>
<p>“What set you off?” Alec asks quietly. “Or was it just everything?”</p>
<p>“My makeup,” Magnus admits, “I left it behind.”</p>
<p>Alec sighs. “Shit. I’m sorry. I’ll bring it—”</p>
<p>“No!” Magnus pulls him in tight, fingers digging painfully into his skin.</p>
<p>“I was going to say ‘I’ll bring it tomorrow,’” Alec says quietly, stroking his hair.</p>
<p>“Oh.” Whether Alec will even want to come back tomorrow feels like somewhat of an open question to Magnus.</p>
<p>“Let’s stay in tonight,” Alec says. “I’ll turn off my phone and we can just… stay.”</p>
<p>“You can’t do that,” Magnus says.</p>
<p>“Well, I’m going to.”</p>
<p>No, he doesn’t <em>understand</em>. Magnus already lost almost everything. He can’t be the cause of Alec losing—or in this case, giving up—everything, too. <em>One </em>of them has to stay afloat.</p>
<p>But Magnus can’t find the strength to climb out of his lap and tell him that.</p>
<p>“Just for the record,” Alec says, “I was right. You’re beautiful without your makeup. And you’re not allowed to contradict me on it.”</p>
<p>Magnus can’t be bothered to even try. If Alec wants to think he’s beautiful, well, he’s allowed to think that. Magnus wishes he could take that praise into his chest, but he’s not sure he’s capable of it anymore.</p>
<p>He just tucks his ruined useless body into Alec’s and tries to hold on.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Magnus never thought he would have a <em>wedding night</em>. The very idea of it sends strands of giddiness running up and down his nerves, sparking all of his skin to life. He’d meant it when he said to Alec, <em>I’m walking on air.</em> The champagne bubbles might as well be lifting him off his feet.</p>
<p>For some reason, he’d expected desperation. Tumbling through a portal after the reception and falling right into bed, tearing off each other’s expensive tuxedos, not letting go of each other’s mouths. But he supposes they did that last night, when they reunited after Edom.</p>
<p>Tonight, Alec holds his hand as they step into the living room, playing with his wedding ring. He looks absolutely radiant, happier than Magnus thinks he’s ever seen him, but—tired, too. It’s been a long few days. Magnus feels them weighing on his bones.</p>
<p>“You’re so beautiful,” Alec tells him, kissing his knuckles, and Magnus basks in it. Standing in the light of Alec’s earnest praise is like stepping back into the sun after weeks of rain.</p>
<p>“We’re married,” Magnus says. The feeling bubbling up in his chest is indescribable. He feels—safe. Settled. Content.</p>
<p>Alec grins. “We’re married,” he repeats. “Now what?”</p>
<p>“Now we have sex, darling,” Magnus says, and Alec laughs, startled.</p>
<p>“No, I know, I just meant”—he takes both of Magnus’s hands in his own, swinging them back and forth—“what do you want to do? We have the rest of our lives, you know.”</p>
<p>Magnus knows. Magnus <em>knows.</em></p>
<p>“I just want you,” he says.</p>
<p>“Obviously.”</p>
<p>Magnus raises an eyebrow. “Oh, full of ourselves, are we?”</p>
<p>Alec smiles so wide. “I think I have reason to be.” He steps closer, still holding Magnus’s hands. “And so do you, Mr. Lightwood-Bane.”</p>
<p>It’s frankly ridiculous, how much that makes Magnus light up. He can feel himself glowing. It’s absolutely pathetically sappy. It feels fantastic.</p>
<p>“Are you flirting with a married man, Mr. Lightwood-Bane?” he asks, tapping at Alec’s lips. “Shameless.”</p>
<p>“Only for you,” Alec vows. His hands come to rest on either side of Magnus’s neck, holding him gently. “But you have to tell me what you want.”</p>
<p>Magnus frowns in consideration. “I’m tired,” he complains, and Alec’s forehead creases in sympathy. “Can we take a bath?”</p>
<p>“Your wish is my command,” Alec says, and then he’s sweeping Magnus off his feet and carrying him towards the bedroom. Magnus relaxes in his arms, draping a hand over the back of his neck to play with his hair. He wonders how long Alec could hold him before he would get tired. Based on the amount of effort this seems to be costing him, he thinks it would be rather a long time.</p>
<p>“Don’t think I forgot about that wedding night thing,” Alec says as he carries Magnus over the threshold and into their bedroom.</p>
<p>“I would never,” Magnus says as if offended at the very thought.</p>
<p>But it makes him think, more coherently: he’s being carried by his <em>husband</em>. He doesn’t actually know what to do with that thought. All he can really do is live in it. Revel in it.</p>
<p><em>“Husband.” </em>He draws the word out long, tasting it, and above him, Alec grins.</p>
<p>“Yes, dear?”</p>
<p>“Put me down so I can see that pretty face properly.”</p>
<p>“Bossy,” Alec mutters, but he puts him down on the bathroom counter. Magnus swings his legs until Alec steps between them, stilling him with two broad palms on his thighs. Magnus takes his face between his hands and takes the opportunity to simply admire him—the strong line of his brow, his bright intelligent eyes, the soft slant of his mouth. Alec’s already taken off his jacket, has the top button of his shirt popped open, his bowtie hanging undone. Magnus reaches down to work open another button, fingers brushing Alec’s chest.</p>
<p>“Sometimes I am so in love with your soul that I forget how stunning you are,” he murmurs, and Alec’s breath catches. Magnus gives him a very obvious once-over. “I must say, I’m <em>loving</em> the reminder.”</p>
<p>It takes Alec a long time to respond as he seems preoccupied with just gazing at Magnus, so much emotion in his eyes that Magnus thinks he would have been afraid of it, once. Now, he just wants more.</p>
<p>Alec leans in to kiss him. His lips are soft, and taste very faintly of champagne, and he kisses Magnus so gently, almost exploratory. It reminds Magnus of their first kiss in private, when they’d first really committed to each other.</p>
<p>After a moment, Alec pulls away to look at him, brushing a thumb over Magnus’s lower lip. “You’ve really outdone yourself with this makeup.”</p>
<p>Magnus knows he has. It’s carefully and lovingly applied, but subtler, actually, than his usual looks. Simple and dark from afar, but underlit by jewel tones that only appear in certain lights, when one is close enough to see them. Meant for them, for <em>Alec</em>, not for an audience.</p>
<p>It’s beautiful. Magnus doesn’t need Alec to tell him that. But still he says, seized by a sudden desperate impulse—</p>
<p>“Take it off.”</p>
<p>Alec looks startled. “What?”</p>
<p>Magnus fumbles in a drawer for his makeup remover, not taking his eyes off of Alec. He hands the bottle to him. “Take it off.”</p>
<p>Alec keeps staring at him. He doesn’t take the bottle. He looks sort of wild, sort of frightened. “Magnus, I don’t— don’t want you to— just because you think <em>I </em>want—”</p>
<p>“Alexander.” Magnus lays a finger over his lips to quiet him. “Do you remember what you said when I lost my magic and couldn’t get my eyeliner right?”</p>
<p>“I said you looked beautiful without it. But you look beautiful <em>with it</em>, too, Magnus. And you worked so hard. I don’t want you to think—”</p>
<p>Magnus shushes him. “I didn’t believe you,” he says, “when you said that.”</p>
<p>Alec falters. He looks very sad all of a sudden.</p>
<p>“I never thought someone could love me like that,” Magnus continues, smiling sadly.</p>
<p>He can tell Alec wants to say, <em>but it’s just makeup. How could someone not love you over that?</em> But they both know it’s not just the makeup. It’s barely even the makeup at all.</p>
<p>Alec <em>is </em>right on one count. Magnus worked very hard on this makeup. But his hands shook as he applied it, as he did it without magic just to prove that he could. He doesn’t want his hands to shake anymore.</p>
<p>He’ll come back to it. But he thinks, maybe, he has to take it off first in order to put it back on.</p>
<p>Magnus pushes the bottle of makeup remover back into Alec’s hands. “I need this.”</p>
<p>And this time, Alec takes it. “Okay.”</p>
<p>He wets a washcloth with the remover and starts dabbing gently at Magnus’s face. Magnus closes his eyes, both to give Alec access to his eyelids, and because it’s too overwhelming, having to watch this happen at the same time he’s experiencing it.</p>
<p>Alec is… so gentle with him. He tilts Magnus’s face up with a hand, fingers lightly braced along his jaw. Magnus can feel the love in his touch, can picture him biting his lip in concentration, and he smiles.</p>
<p>“I’m proud of you,” Alec says softly. He keeps dabbing at Magnus’s eyes. “I’m really proud of you. I love you.”</p>
<p>“I love you,” Magnus echoes, taking Alec’s free hand from his jaw so he can kiss his fingers. “Husband.”</p>
<p>He can feel Alec smiling. “Husband,” he repeats.</p>
<p>It's startling, how quickly it all washes away. Magnus can tell Alec’s done with the makeup when he hears the faucet turn on, and the sound of Alec dipping the washcloth under the stream. He runs it, wet now with water, one last time over Magnus’s face, then leans in to kiss him, just lightly, on the lips.</p>
<p>Magnus finally opens his eyes to find Alec gazing at him again, smiling a little. “I win,” Alec says.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“You’re beautiful.” Alec leans in to kiss him again, once, twice, three times.</p>
<p>Magnus smiles into the kiss, shocked to find that he doesn’t feel stripped bare, either by the lack of makeup or Alec’s blatant regard. He just feels warm. Wanted. It’s overwhelming, to be so wanted, this version of himself that he didn’t think could ever <em>be </em>wanted.</p>
<p>He reaches out with steady hands to start unbuttoning Alec’s shirt. Alec leans into him, presses his forehead against Magnus’s. The muscles in his stomach move with every brush of Magnus’s fingertips. Magnus watches, fascinated, as if he’s never seen something like this before, never seen the body of another person before.</p>
<p>Maybe he hasn’t. Not like this.</p>
<p>By the time he reaches the last button, his hands are shaking. He manages to get the button undone and presses his hands flat to Alec’s stomach, feeling his breath.</p>
<p>“Okay?” Alec asks, and Magnus nods. He knows that this, sex with his <em>husband</em>, is going to wreck him, and he finds he’s rather looking forward to it. He doesn’t want to be the same ever again.</p>
<p>Alec’s fingers are playing with the buttons of Magnus’s waistcoat. He works them open one by one. Then his shirt, slowly, slowly, until his hand is pressed to Magnus’s bare hip. Magnus sucks in a breath at the weight of it, the warmth of it. He thinks of those hands holding him down. Lifting him up.</p>
<p>“What do you want?” Alec asks. The tenor of his voice has changed, deepened slightly. His gaze on Magnus is charged. Magnus can feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest under his hands.</p>
<p>Magnus meets his gaze, feels heat arc between them. Alec’s mere gaze undoes him, has him trembling with want where he sits, his body curves toward him. Every part of Magnus curves toward him. The bath isn’t happening, they aren’t going to make the bath. They were never going to make the bath.</p>
<p>Magnus looks at his husband, touching him so lightly and already commanding his every pleasure. He wants more. He wants everything. He’s not tired anymore.</p>
<p>He says, “Ruin me.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i was flailing over <a href="https://cuubism.tumblr.com/post/630296526434009088/cuubism-rai-knightshade-daphneg121-but-this">this gifset</a> the other night, so yeah that's what inspired this</p></blockquote></div></div>
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